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"In the past decade considerable interest has developed in the geology of the Boston Mountain area of northern Arkansas. This has been due to exploration for oil and gas in-the area and the related desire to know more about the structure and stratigraphy of the region. Principal work has been done by the University of Arkansas, the United States Geological Survey, and oil companies. This study involves only one of the formations making up the geologic column in the Boston Mountains, the Upper Mississippian (Chesterian Series) Fayetteville Formation.

Portions of the upper part of the Fayetteville Formation of northwestern Arkansas and northeastern Oklahoma consist of interbedded calcareous and argillaceous beds which form a rhythmic or cyclic pattern. Such patterns are ordinarily not seen in the Mississippian rocks around the Ozark Plateau, except perhaps in a crude fashion in the Chesterian rocks on the east flank of the Ozark Plateau. The lithologic units in the Chester cycles there are much thicker and less sharply defined. Rhythmic sedimentation has been described (Bokman, 1953) in the Meramecian series and Stanley Formations which are deposited nearer the axis of the Ouachita geosyncline in the Fayetteville area. Rhythms of various types have also been observed by the writer in the rocks of the underlying Moorefield and overlying Pitkin and Atoka Formations in the area of the study. They are, however, not as distinct as those of the Fayetteville and involve elastic rocks except for the Pitkin Formation"--Introduction, page 2.